Bravo to skipper T&T in Super50

West Indies One Day International captain Dwayne Bravo has been made skipper of this country’s team for the upcoming Super50 at the Queen’s Park Oval.

Bravo, who is currently on duty with the West Indies team in New Zealand, takes over the helm from wicketkeeper/batsman Denesh Ramdin, who has been in charge since Daren Ganga was removed two years ago. 

T&T Guardian understands that the T&T selectors made a recommendation to the board to have Bravo installed in the position and when the matter went around for consultation—it was agreed that if he is West Indies One Day International captain then it is only fitting that he is made captain of the T&T team for the regional tournament. Ramdin led the team during the last Super50 tournament and T&T was knocked out at the semi-final stage by little fancied Combined Campuses and Colleges (CCC) at Kensington Oval in Barbados.

Meanwhile, chairman of the selection panel Alec Burns said the team will be selected today. Originally the team was supposed to be selected on Saturday but the selectors wanted to take a longer look at the players. 

Burns said the players were coming along nicely and hopefully they will be in good shape when the tournament bowls off at the end of this month. “We as selectors are happy that the guys are moving in a positive direction. Looking on at the trials on the weekend, we saw one team being bowled out for 63 and the other replying with a little bit as well. We had to take into consideration that the pitch had too much moisture in it and after this dried out some guys cashed in and made runs. We had a century from Evin Lewis and a good 72 from Jason Mohammed.

“What was important was the fact that the guys during the second innings looked as if they wanted to bat for long and this has been our problem in the past. We have not been batting out our 50 overs and this has affected our results.

“There is another three-day match starting on Friday at the National Cricket Centre (NCC) and this will be followed by two 50 overs matches on January 22 and 25. On the 26th some of the players selected will be given the opportunity to play in the National league which gets going and after this they go into camp. So there is a lot of cricket to be played before the tournament starts and hopefully the guys that are selected will make the best of the opportunities provided to them to get into top shape for the tournament.”